the blog of yair horowitz

No, “solar overkill” isn’t a new form is broiling. It simply refers to the lovely fact that – particularly because I’m now RVing solo – the sun provides way more electricity than I need. Harsh LED lights? Outta’ here. Keeping my WiFi on 24/7? Hell yeah. Running a 250 watt sound system for casual listening? Sure thing – and with juice to spare.

I recently spent wonderfully fun, long weekends at a juggling festival and at a build/work weekend for Saguaro Man. I had a joyful time at each and they were both off-grid, meaning there were plenty of campers with cell phones and cameras in desperate search of non-existent 120-volt outlets.

My solar array is long-since installed. My hefty battery bank holds down the electronic fort and even on partially cloudy days I have more electricity than I know what to do with. So of course I offer my overflowing cup of joules to anyone who might need them. I had charging stations set up at the juggling festival and at Saguaro Man work weekend, and the fun/funny thing to me is how appreciative people were of my giving away sun-juice. If I wasn’t charging peoples’ stuff that energy would have literally been dissipated as heat. It cost me exactly zero marginal dollars to have a power strip available for public chargification, yet I received thanks as though I was giving away cash. Same deal with the WiFi network which I made public. Zero cost for me to share, but thankfulness up the LTE-wazoo.

Anyway, you’re welcome people. But I think it’s kind of funny to be profusely thanked for giving away a practically unlimited resource.